There's some really good news for benefits selling professionals amidst the tumult of healthcare reform: you are more needed than ever to help your customers navigate a benefits landscape that's been rapidly and inexorably changing since President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010. That much, at least, has become clear as employers, plan providers, healthcare providers, policymakers and benefits sellers all try to grasp the ultimate impact of the Affordable Care Act on supplemental benefits — particularly vision and dental benefits — as the ACA's provisions are gradually implemented through 2018.

Vision and dental plans make only a brief cameo appearance in the 906-page ACA. But that brief mention and the subsequent regulations coming out of HHS have profound ramifications for all children currently lacking dental or vision coverage — as well as for more than 100 million Americans and upwards of two million small employers whose benefits include vision, dental, or both.

The ACA mandates the creation of healthcare exchanges whose participating plans must offer "pediatric services including oral and vision care" as part of an Essential Health Benefits Package (EHBP) intended to set the baseline for healthcare coverage. A surprising amount hinges on the inclusion of those fateful words in the ACA — and on how expansively the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (and eventually state legislators and regulators) interprets their meaning as it develops, vets, and ultimately promulgates regulations that determine the actual benefits considered to be essential.